Roman-Chinese relations

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The two empires were on opposite ends of Eurasia

The Roman-Chinese relations were in the course of its history always indirect and informal. The Roman Empire and Han China gradually converged in the course of Roman expansion into the Middle East and simultaneous Chinese incursions into Central Asia . The existence of strong, intermediate empires - such as that of the Parthians or Sassanids and the Kushan  - prevented any direct encounter between the Eurasian flank powers, so that the mutual perception remained low and vague, even if it was from the 2nd century AD. occasionally came to travel by Roman traders to China.

Only a few attempts at direct contact can be found in ancient Chinese records: in AD 97, the Chinese general Ban Chao unsuccessfully sent an ambassador to Rome. The presence of several supposedly Roman emissaries was recorded in Chinese court annals; the first official diplomatic mission, which could have come from the Roman emperors Antoninus Pius or Marcus Aurelius , is said to have appeared at the Chinese court in 166 AD. It is likely that these Romans were actually private individuals (see below). Roman sources do not report any diplomatic contacts with China.

The exchange of goods by land (on the so-called Silk Road ) and by sea ( India trade ), which was usually carried out via numerous middlemen - above all Parthians and Sassanids - mainly focused on Chinese silk and Roman glass and quality fabrics .

When evaluating the Roman sources, there are also interpretation difficulties due to the ambiguity of the Latin name " Seres ", which can refer to a whole range of Asian peoples in a wide range from India ( Roman-Indian relations ) through Central Asia to China. In Chinese sources the Roman Empire was known as " Daqin " (Great Qin ) and was seen as a kind of counter-China at the other end of the world, whose understanding was made difficult from the beginning by the dominance of mythological ideas about the Far West.

Only in late antiquity can real mutual knowledge of the two, meanwhile divided, empires be proven under changed names. While the northern Chinese empire of the Wei dynasty , which emerged from the nomadic people of the Tabgatsch , and its successors in late ancient Eastern Roman-Byzantine sources are referred to as Taugast (after the Tabgatsch), the Eastern Roman Empire or its capital, Constantinople , for example Nestorian stele from Xi'an , known as Fulin . On the other hand, Daqin now designates the main Sassanid residence Ctesiphon on this stele . In addition, late Roman gold coins from the 5th century AD can be found in China.

Indirect trade relationships

Chinese silk in the Roman Empire

Maenad in silk dress, Naples National Museum

Rome's trade with China began in the 1st century BC. BC ( Han Wudi ), reinforced by the high Roman demand for Chinese silk . Although the Romans already knew Koische silk , they initially considered the Chinese silk fiber to be a vegetable product:

“The Serer (Chinese) are famous for the wool-like substance they extract from their forests; after soaking in water, they scrape off the whites of the leaves […] So diverse is the applied work and so far away is the region of the world on which one relies to enable the Roman girls to wear transparent clothes in public splurge. "( Pliny the Elder , Naturalis Historia VI, 54)

Elsewhere, Pliny complains about the high costs of importing silk:

“India, the Serer and the Arabian Peninsula take in 100 million sesterces annually through our empire: that's how much our luxury and our women cost us.” ( Pliny the Elder , Naturalis Historia XII, 84)

The Roman Senate issued (albeit with little success) several edicts banning the wearing of silk for the economic as well as moral reasons mentioned above. Silk dresses were seen as decadent and immoral:

“I can see silk clothes, provided that fabrics that hide neither body nor decency can even be called clothes. [...] Whole swarms of girls try to ensure that the adulteress is visible through her thin dress and that a husband has no more knowledge of his wife's body than any stranger. "( Seneca , de beneficiis 7, 9)

Seneca's contemporary Petronius had his nouveau riche Trimalchio describe the new silk fashion in a very similar way :

“Rome's castle is bursting in the broad throat of luxury. […] Is there a touch of dress for a wife, a pile costume in the traditional way of a prostitute? "( Petronius , Satyricon 55, 6)

and:

“The pleasures that everyone was familiar with no longer appealed […] to a bet in the earth shaft one looked for shimmering treasures and purple snails in the sea. Marble came from Numidia here, silk there from China […]. ”( Petronius , Satyricon 119, 7f. And 10f.)

The Roman historian Florus describes the visit to numerous embassies, including Serer (perhaps Chinese), to the first Roman emperor Augustus , who lived between 27 BC. And 14 AD ruled:

“Now that all the peoples of the west and south were subjugated, and also the peoples of the north, […] the Scythians and the Sarmatians sent ambassadors to seek our friendship; The Serer and also the Indians who live directly under the sun, although they brought elephants and precious stones and pearls as gifts, considered their long journey, which they spent four years to accomplish, as the greatest tribute they paid, and in indeed their complexion proved that they live under a different sky. "(Florus, Epitomae II, 34)

Probably in the 1st century AD, a shipping route opened from the Roman-controlled ports in Egypt and Nabatea on the northeast coast of the Red Sea via ports on the coasts of India and Sri Lanka to the Chinese-controlled Jiaozhi (in today's Vietnam , near Hanoi ). Hundreds of Roman coins were discovered in the former coastal town of Óc Eo in the Mekong Delta in the 1940s. Óc Eo could also be identical with the port "Kattigara" mentioned by Claudius Ptolemy .

Roman exports to China

Roman glass from the 2nd century AD

High quality glass from Roman factories in Alexandria and Syria has been exported to many places in Asia, including Han China. Other luxury Roman articles that were highly valued by Chinese customers were gold-embroidered carpets and gold-colored fabrics, asbestos fabrics and linen , a fabric made from the silk-like hair of certain Mediterranean sea shells.

Embassies and trips

Chinese conceptions of a Roman in Sancai Tuhui , 1607

The expedition from Ban Chao

In AD 97, Ban Chao crossed the Tianshan and Pamirs with an army of 70,000 men in a campaign against the Xiongnu who attacked the trade route now known as the Silk Road . The westernmost point it reached was the former Greek polis Antiochia Margiana ( Merw ), near the Parthian Empire. From here he allegedly sent an envoy named Gan Ying to Daqin (Rome). Gan Ying left a detailed report of the western countries, although he only got as far as Mesopotamia . He intended to sail to Rome through the Black Sea , but some enterprising Parthian traders who wanted to maintain their lucrative role as middleman in trade between Rome and China told him the trip would take at least two more years. (Gan Ying had been less than two months from the city of Rome and only a few days from the Roman border at the time.) Discouraged, Gan Ying returned home in AD 98. However, he left a report on Rome ( Daqin in Chinese ), which may have relied on second-hand sources. He located it in the west of the sea:

“His [Rome] territory stretches for several thousand Li [a“ Li ”is about half a kilometer] and has over 400 walled cities. The outer walls of the cities are made of stone. You have set up post offices. [...] There are also pines and cypresses. "(Hou Hanshu)

In addition, he describes perhaps the adoptive emperorship (but possibly also the consuls were meant) of the emperors Nerva or Trajan , the appearance of the Romans and their products:

“As for the ruler, he is not a permanent institution, but the most honorable man is chosen. […] The people in this country are tall and have regular facial features. They resemble the Chinese, and that is why the country is called Da Qin (the "great" Qin). [...] The earth produces a lot of gold, silver and rare stones, including a stone that glows at night. […] They sew fabrics embroidered with gold thread to make tapestries and multi-colored damask, and they make a gold-colored fabric and a fabric that is 'washed in fire' ( asbestos ). ”(Hou Hanshu)

Finally, he correctly describes the Roman Empire as the main economic power at the western end of Eurasia:

"All the various wonderful and rare things of the foreign countries come from this country." (Hou Hanshu)

The east travels of Maës Titianus

Maës Titianus came to Tashkurgan (known in antiquity as the “stone city”), the gateway to China (blue).

The first ancient traveler from the Roman-Hellenistic cultural area who penetrated along the Silk Road from the world of the Mediterranean to the Far East was, as far as attested ( Claudius Ptolemaios , Geographika 1,11,7), the merchant Maës (Maesius? ) Titianus. Around the year 100 AD, during a break in the continually flaring up battles between Rome and the Parthians, his group reached the famous stone city of Tashkurgan in the Pamirs , in the far west of China. Ptolemy, the only source, also briefly remarks that Titianus did not get to the “land of the Serer” himself, but sent men there.

The first Roman "embassy"

Ptolemy's world map , from Ptolemy's Geographia (around 150 AD) shows “Sina” ( China ) on the far right, beyond the island of “Taprobane” ( Sri Lanka ) and the “Aurea Chersonesus” (Southeast Asian peninsula).

With the expansion of the Roman Empire into the Middle East during the 2nd century AD, the Romans had the opportunity to further expand seafaring and trade in the Indian Ocean . Several ports have been excavated on the coast of India containing Roman goods that were brought there as part of the Indian trade . Roman soldiers were stationed in Arabia and on islands in the Persian Gulf to oversee trade with the east.

Groups of Romans then probably traveled further east, either on Roman, Indian or Chinese ships. The first group to claim to be an official Roman ambassador mission to China was recorded in AD 166, 60 years after the expeditions of Chinese General Ban Chao westward. The embassy came "from Antun ( Chinese  安敦 ), King of Daqin (Rome)" to Emperor Huan from the Han Dynasty . Since Antoninus Pius died in AD 161, leaving the empire to his adoptive son Mark Aurel (Marcus Aurelius Antoninus), it remains uncertain who ultimately sent the mission, since both emperors were called "Antoninus" - if it was an official mission at all .

Asia in detail on Ptolemy's world map : on the left the Gulf of the Ganges , in the middle the Southeast Asian peninsula, on the right the Chinese Sea with “Sina” ( China ).

Said Romans came from the south (hence probably across the sea) and entered China via the Jinan or Tonkin border . Another fact that suggests that the embassy came to China by sea is that the plague was raging in Anxi ( Parthia ) at that time . The Romans brought rhinoceros horns, ivory and tortoiseshell as gifts, which they had probably previously acquired in South Asia. The Chinese scribe complains that there were no gems among the gifts and suspects that these were withheld by the ambassadors. The poorness of the gifts and the complete lack of mention of the mission in Roman sources suggests that the embassy was in truth probably not official. Perhaps some (Syrian?) Merchants used the title of an allegedly lordly mission to make higher profits. At about the same time, possibly through this embassy, ​​the Chinese acquired a treatise on astronomy from the Romans.

The existence of China was clearly known to the Roman cartographers of that time, as the name and location of China are shown in Ptolemy 's Geographia (originated around 150 AD). On the map, China is located beyond the Aurea Chersonesus ("Golden Peninsula"), which belongs to the Southeast Asian Peninsula. On the map, China lies on the Magnus Sinus ("Great Gulf"), which probably corresponds to the areas of the China Sea known at the time ; however, Ptolemy shows that it faces southeast rather than northeast. From the 2nd century on there was extensive trade across the Indian Ocean . In India and Sri Lanka, many trading ports with connections to Roman communities were discovered along the route taken by the Roman mission.

Other Roman "embassies"

Additional embassies may have been sent after this first encounter, but they were not recorded until a report describes gifts given in the early 3rd century AD from the Roman ruler to Emperor Cao Rui (ruled from AD 227–239. ) were sent to northern China from the Wei Dynasty . The again very modest gifts consisted of glass articles in a variety of colors. Although several Roman emperors ruled during this time, the embassy, ​​if authentic, may have left under Emperor Alexander Severus (222–235), as his successors ruled only briefly and were involved in civil wars. Another embassy from Daqin that brought gifts to the Chinese Empire is recorded for the year 284. This embassy was sent either by Emperor Probus or by his successor Carus .

As in the case of the “Legation” of 166, however, the suspicion that the Romans in question were not diplomats, but private merchants who merely stated who was ruling the Roman Empire at the time of their departure . It is unclear whether they posed as imperial ambassadors. What is certain is that the Chinese sources viewed them as official envoy of the Romans, perhaps to increase the glory of their own empire.

Hypothetical land contact

Roman prisoners of war from the battle of Carrhae were brought by the Parthians to Margiana in the east of their empire.

The Roman scholar Pliny reports that 10,000 Roman prisoners of war were brought by the Parthians to Margiana after the battle of Carrhae (53 BC) and did serpentine labor there to build the city wall:

" Orodes brought the Romans to this place [Margiana], who had survived the defeat of Crassus." (Pliny the Elder, Naturalis Historia VI, 18)

The American sinologist Homer H. Dubs , who was teaching at Oxford at the time, developed the thesis based on a Chinese source in 1941 that some of these Roman soldiers might later have collided with Han Chinese troops in Central Asia. A few years after Carrhae, the nomadic Xiongnu chief Zhizhi established an empire east of Margiana in the Talas Valley, near present-day Taraz ( Kazakhstan ). A Chinese report tells of about a hundred men who died in 36 BC. Under the command of Zhizhi in a "fish scales formation" defended the palisade fortress in the battle of Zhizhi against the Han troops. Dubs interprets this description as an indication of the typical Roman turtle formation ( testudo ) and suggests that the fighters captured by the Chinese subsequently founded the village of Liqian (Li-chien) in Yongchang .

Dubs' hypothesis is rejected by historical research as highly speculative and his argumentation as incomplete. A DNA analysis in 2005 actually found predominantly European genetic material in some of today's residents of Liqian , but this could also come from other trans-ethnic connections along the heavily frequented Silk Road. A much more extensive DNA analysis of more than two hundred local male residents published in 2007 revealed a close genetic relationship to the Han Chinese population and a great genetic distance from Western Eurasian populations. The study concludes that the village population is likely of Han Chinese descent. In addition, there are no clear archaeological traces of Roman presence in the area.

According to another, new hypothesis by Christopher Anthony Matthew, these warriors are not supposed to be Romans or legionaries with their turtle formation, but possibly descendants of the remains of the army of Alexander the Great , some of which settled in garrisons and settlements in Asia The culture and fighting style ( hoplites in phalanx formation ) of their ancestors, the Greeks and Macedonians , could have been preserved.

According to a newspaper report from December 2014, the story among the citizens of Liqian is still alive today. "They are proud of what they consider to be their Roman legacy, and recently they have also liked to dress up as legionnaires."

Comparative studies

In modern historical research, in addition to the (indirect) contact history of the two kingdoms, various developments in Rome and China are also being examined comparatively. Similarities are striking at the level of the “statehood” of the respective empire (with urban centers, trade networks, a structured administration and a standing military, etc.), the imperial self-image (especially with regard to the empire) and the reflection in the respective contemporary historiography. This is also noticeable with regard to a comparable threat situation at the borders: Both for Rome and for China, the opponents from outside the respective cultural area (with the exception of the Sassanid Empire , which played a not unimportant mediator function) were " barbarians " tried to defeat militarily, to calm down (see heqin ) or to involve. In both cases, various foreign groups also played a role in the collapse of imperial rule (or in the case of Rome in the fall of the western empire in 476).

literature

  • Maria H. Dettenhofer : The Roman Empire and the China of the Han period. Approaches to a historical comparative literature. In: Latomus 65 (2006), ISSN  0023-8856 , pp. 879-897.
  • John E. Hill: Through the Jade Gate to Rome. A Study of the Silk Routes during the Later Han Dynasty, 1st to 2nd Centuries CE. An annotated translation of the chronicle on the "Western Regions" in the Hou Hanshu. BookSurge, Charleston SC 2009, ISBN 978-1-4392-2134-1 .
  • Donald Daniel Leslie, Kenneth HJ Gardiner: The Roman Empire in Chinese Sources. Bardi, Rome 1996.
  • Raoul McLaughlin: Rome and the distant East. Trade routes to the ancient lands of Arabia, India and China. Continuum, London 2010, ISBN 978-1-84725-235-7 .
  • Raoul McLaughlin: The Roman Empire and the Silk Routes: The Ancient World Economy and the Empires of Parthia, Central Asia and Han China. Barnsley 2016.
  • Fritz-Heiner Mutschler , Achim Mittag (ed.): Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared. Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-921464-8 .
  • Manfred G. Raschke: New studies in Roman commerce with the east . In: Rise and Fall of the Roman World . Volume 9, 2nd half volume, Berlin / New York 1978, pp. 604–1361 (fundamental to trade relations).
  • Walter Scheidel (Ed.): Rome and China. Comparative Perspectives on Ancient World Empires. Oxford Studies in Early Empires, Oxford University Press, Oxford / New York 2009, ISBN 978-0-19-533690-0 ( table of contents ).

Web links

Remarks

  1. ↑ Hill (2009), p. 5.
  2. ↑ Pulleybank (1999), pp. 77f.
  3. ↑ Hill (2009), p. 27.
  4. ↑ Pulleybank (1999), p. 78
  5. ^ J. Thorley: The Silk Trade between China and the Roman Empire at Its Height, 'Circa' AD 90-130 . In: Greece & Rome , 18, 71-80 (1971)
  6. ↑ Pulleybank (1999), pp. 71, 78
  7. ↑ Since a "Patriarch of Fulin" is also mentioned in the 7th century, it is assumed that Constantinople is hidden behind Fulin , which was often simply referred to as the polis ; see. Otto Franke: History of the Chinese Empire. Volume 1, Berlin 1961 (ND), p. 370.
  8. ↑ Otto Franke: The traces of the Nestorians in China . In: Orientalistische Literaturzeitung , Vol. 42 (1939), pp. 201 ff., 206
  9. ↑ luxuriae rictu Martis marcent moenia […] aequum est induere nuptam ventum textilem, / palam prostare nudam in nebula linea? ; Translated from W. Ehlers 1965.
  10. ↑ non vulgo nota placebant / gaudia [...] in ima / quaesitus Tellure nitor certaverat ostro / Hinc Numidae † accusatius, † [Scaligers: crustas, ] illinc nova vellera Seres, ; Translated from W. Ehlers 1965.
  11. ^ J. Thorley: The Silk Trade between China and the Roman Empire at Its Height, 'Circa' AD 90-130 . In: Greece & Rome , Vol. 18, No. 1 (1971), pp. 71-80 (77)
  12. ^ Max Cary: Maes, qui et Titianus. In: The Classical Quarterly 6 (1956), pp. 130 ff.
  13. ↑ Homer H. Dubs: An ancient military contact between Romans and Chinese . In: The American journal of philology , Vol. 62, No. 3 (1941), pp. 322-330. As the author (verbal communication) he names the well-known ancient historian William Woodthorpe Tarn , whose theses, however, have not always met with unreserved approval.
  14. ↑ For the discussion, cf. last U. Manthe: Soldiers of the Crassus Army in China? In: Gymnasium 121 (2014), p. 477ff.
  15. ↑ Ethan Gruber: The Origins of Roman Li-chien . ( Memento of the original from July 10, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 209 kB), 2007, pp. 18–21 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / people.virginia.edu
  16. ^ A b Hunt for Roman Legion Reaches China . In: China Daily , November 20, 2010; Retrieved June 4, 2012
  17. ↑ a b The Lost Legion . 20 minutes online, November 27, 2010; Retrieved June 4, 2012
  18. ↑ a b Chinese Villagers 'Descended from Roman Soldiers' . In: The Telegraph , November 23, 2010; Retrieved June 4, 2012
  19. ↑ a b DNA Tests Show Chinese Villagers with Green Eyes Could Be Descendants of Lost Roman Legion . Mail Online November 29, 2010; Retrieved June 4, 2012
  20. ^ A b R. Zhou et al .: Testing the Hypothesis of an Ancient Roman Soldier Origin of the Liqian People in Northwest China: a Y-Chromosome Perspective . In: Journal of Human Genetics , Vol. 52, No. 7 (2007), pp. 584-591, PMID 17579807 .
  21. ↑ CA Matthew: Greek Hoplites in an Ancient Chinese Siege . In: Journal of Asian History 45 (2011), pp. 17ff.
  22. ↑ History of the Ancient World - Descendants of Alexander the Great's army fought in ancient China (July 9, 2012)
  23. ↑ Alexander Menden: The Chinese Legion . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , 13./14. December 2014, p. 65 with photo of "legionnaires" in a reenactment .
  24. ↑ For the first approach, see above all Raschke (1978), for the second approach see Dettenhofer (2006), Mutschler / Mittag (2008) and Scheidel (2009).
  25. ↑ See the articles in Fritz-Heiner Mutschler, Achim Mittag (Ed.): Conceiving the Empire. China and Rome Compared. Oxford 2009.
  26. ↑ With regard to China, see, for example, Thomas Barfield: Perilous Frontier: Nomadic Empires and China. Cambridge (MA) / Oxford 1989; Nicola di Cosmo: Ancient China and its Enemies. Cambridge 2002. For a summary of Rome see Walter Pohl : Die Völkerwanderung. 2nd edition Stuttgart 2002; Helmuth Schneider (ed.): Hostile neighbors. Rome and the Teutons. Cologne 2008.